US Presidents Study News

News and Articles on US Presidents and Presidential Rankings

Upcoming Siena Polls Rank U.S. Presidents

State of Politics

Over the next two months, the Siena College Research Institute will be releasing two polls that should give some insight into how people view not only President Donald Trump, but his predecessors.

In February, the institute plans to publicize the results of a survey of New Yorkers about all the living presidents. That’s Trump, Barack Obama, both the Bushes, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, for those who are keeping track.

“We like to track both experts, historians, and the general public in terms of how they view the current president and other presidents on aspects of their leadership, their ability to work with Congress, their readiness to handle international events, all very important aspects of the job,” Director Don Levy said.

Continue reading at State of Politics…


How Trump Ranks In Popularity vs. Past Presidents

FiveThirtyEight

By Harry Enten

Poll of the week
The anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration is Saturday, and he is ending his first year on an upswing. The FiveThirtyEight Trump job approval tracker puts his approval rating at about 40 percent — matching its high-water mark since his first few months in office. His disapproval rating is 55 percent.1 That’s not good, but it has markedly improved over the past few weeks.

Continue reading at FiveThirtyEight…


Measuring Obama Against the Great Presidents

Brookings

By Brandon Rottinghaus and Justin S. Vaughn

As Presidents Day approaches, so too does our annual reflection about our greatest presidents and how our current chief executive stacks up against them. Although much of this commentary is of the arm-chair analyst variety, a recent cottage industry of systematic investigations has emerged. Famed Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger Sr. deserves most of the credit for the advance of this knowledge, thanks to his 1948 effort to poll the nation’s top historians for Life magazine. Subsequent polls took place in 1962 and 1996, with his son, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., lead the latter investigation.

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Survey Ranks Obama 15th Best President, Bush Among Worst

US News & World Report

By Mallie Jane Kim

President Obama ranks 15th out of 44 in a poll of the best and worst presidents while former President George W. Bush earns a place in the bottom five, according to the Siena College Research Institute’s recent survey of 238 presidential scholars released Thursday.

Obama secured a top ten place in two skill set categories, communication ability (7th) and ability to compromise (10th), and in two personality trait categories, imagination (6th) and intelligence (8th). Background, described as family, education, and experience, proved his lowest score at 32nd.

Continue reading at US News & World Report…